After Hours - How much is a photo worth

Instagram’s visual nature gives users a way to see a different side of your hotel – whether it’s an artier side, a more honest side or a more human side it helps support what your website shows. Instagram has been getting quite a lot of coverage recently and Occupancy Marketing were asked by Software Advice to offer some thoughts for their recent article on some techniques to improve your presence on Instagram. When people ask us what strategies they hotels follow when using Instagram to help drive revenue it all comes back to three key things:

Post regularly – if you disappear from people’s stream then you won’t be in their minds

Engage with people that comment and guests that post their own photos – that way you’ll really get to know your user’s demographics

Don’t be afraid of doing some photoshopping to make your message really pop – don’t be afraid to be quirky or show your fun side

People get too hung up on trying to get a photo perfect the first time… don’t worry about it! Instead try lots of different things and keep note of how well each image style or message works for your followers. You can even ask some of the followers that you have a relationship with what they think – they may well have some great tips for you.

But how much is a photo really worth? A bike company called Pure Fix Cycles have been very active on Instagram and one of the social tools they work with, SumAll, have worked out the approximate value of each of their Instagram posts… $100! You can see from their account that they are selling unique, high quality, slightly unusual bikes which will definitely help with sales, but they are also putting the effort into creating great images through staging good photography and also through good photoshopping. This is a great wee example of how using the right social sites can have a huge potential for sales… but that potential only comes when you put in the effort to go with it.